Willem Wijnbergen

I am glad to finally see the Los Angeles Philharmonic get a new managing director in Willem Wijnbergen (Oct. 5). Ernest Fleisch- mann was fast becoming the J. Edgar Hoover of orchestral managers. I was unhappy to read that Wijnbergen had never heard our wonderful orchestra live and seems to bring to his post some stale stereotypes about Los Angeles and its culture. “I don’t know the environment, apart from earthquakes and riots and great weather and Rolls-Royces,” he said. He also states the Philharmonic tradition “is rooted about 50 years ago.”

Fifty years ago the L.A. Philharmonic was celebrating its 28th anniversary and was under the baton of Alfred Wallenstein at the late, great Philharmonic Hall, in Pershing Square. Still a vacant lot. Los Angeles during that era was also the creative home to composers Bertolt Brecht, Bernard Hermann, Erich Korngold, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. There is a lot more to Los Angeles than earthquakes and “Baywatch.”

PETER B. McDONALD

Los Angeles